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Yuri Nikitin Юрий Никитин | |
|---|---|
 Nikitin in 2010 | |
| Born | (1939-11-30)30 November 1939 |
| Died | 23 May 2025(2025-05-23) (aged 85) |
| Pen name | Gaius Julius Orlovsky |
| Citizenship | Soviet, Russian |
| Genre | Science fiction,social science fiction,Slavic fantasy |
| Years active | 1973–2025 |
| Website | |
| Официальный сайт | |
Yuri Aleksandrovich Nikitin (Russian:Ю́рий Алекса́ндрович Ники́тин; 30 November 1939 – 23 May 2025) was a Russian writer ofscience fiction, historical fiction, andSlavic fantasy.[1][2]
Although he was active in science fiction beforeperestroika, the recognition came when he wrote aSlavic fantasy novel,The Three from the Forest (Russian: Трое из Леса). One of the protagonists is a character based on the RussianRurikid PrinceOleg of Novgorod, who is a mainstay of manysequels. Nikitin also wrote a couple of novels aboutVladimir the Great. Nikitin created awebsite called Inn (Russian: Корчма) as a community portal to help young writers.
Nikitin's books have a distinct, free, and often intentionally primitive and repetitive style with many jokes, reflecting his intent to keep the reader on topic and carry his ideas through. His later books develop the idea of becoming atranshuman through self-development and survival of the spiritually fittest.
According to the literary critic Sergei Chuprinin, Nikitin, with his series of novels "Three from the Forest", is one of the founders of Slavic fantasy.[1] Some of Nikitin's works reproduce the ideas ofSlavic neopaganism.[3][4]
Yuri Nikitin was born on 30 November 1939, in Kharkiv,Ukrainian SSR, an only child in a low-income family. His father joined the Soviet army as a volunteer in 1941 and died inWorld War II, and his mother never married again. Aweaver in a local factory, she raised her son independently, with the only help of her elderly parents. The four lived in a small rustic house in Zhuravlyovka, a half-ruralsuburb of Kharkiv. Nikitin's grandfather was a well-knowncarpenter,joiner, andshoemaker in the local area.[5] The family could barely make ends meet: as Nikitin recalled later, in the post-war time they had to eat soup made from potato peelings disposed of by their neighbors.[6]
Living in poverty and starvation affected the young Nikitin's health badly. He was born with aheart disease and gotrickets,rheumatism, andchronic tonsillitis. At the age of 15, doctors told Nikitin that he would not live for more than six months, but in the next year, he overcame illnesses and improved his health greatly throughyoga, hardphysical exercise, and a strictdiet.[5]
From his earliest years, Nikitin wasbilingual in Ukrainian and Russian, common for people in Eastern Ukraine. Later, he also learnedEnglish andPolish on his own to be able to read books by foreign sci-fi writers that were not translated in the USSR.[7]
At 16, Nikitin was expelled from school for scuffling andhooliganism and got his first job as ametalworker in a local plant.[8] Two years later, he became alumberman andrafter in the construction sites of theRussian Far North, then ageologistexploring theUssuri krai with its swampy coniferous forests, great rivers, and many places where no human had ever been before. He also explored theSikhote-Alin, theFar East, and the Primorye. Bright impressions of those journeys inspired hisSaveliy series of short science-fiction stories featuring a hunter fromtaiga who meets aliens and teaches the art of hunting to them.[9]
In 1964, Nikitin returned to Kharkiv and continued working temporary jobs, often low-skilled and involving hard physical work, such as a foundry worker at a factory. He lingered in each one for hardly more than a year, mainly because of his wish to try something different. As he commented later inI am 65, his autobiography, “I've never had a job I hated to do. Furthermore, I knew that whatever I did was temporary, that my true destiny was great and my current job nothing but an adventure I'd like to recall someday.”[5]
During 1964–65, Nikitin completed hissecondary education as an external student in an evening school and seriously considered his full-time career choice. He picked up sports, music, painting, and writing as the most promising options for the kind of person he was: an ambitious man of 25 with nohigher education. By 1967, he achieved the master-of-sports rank incanoeing, first grades inboxing,sambo,track and field athletics, learned to play theviolin, and sold severalcartoons to local magazines.[5]
Nikitin wrote his very first stories in 1965, just for fun. Those were humorous and short: the shortest only counted 28 words.[10] All of them were purchased by Russian and Ukrainian magazines. In the next several years, Nikitin created many short sci-fi stories (Saveliy series,Makivchuck the Space Ranger series, and many others) with the same distinctive features: a new, unusual subject, lively characters, fast-changing events, and a striking ending. In 1973, they were collected to make Nikitin's first book,The Man Who Changed the World, an apparent success. Many stories were translated into foreign languages and published in the countries of theWarsaw Pact. However, the Nikitin's earnings were insufficient to live and support the family, so he retained his main occupation as a foundry worker until 1976.[5]
Nikitin's second book,Fire Worshippers, belongs to the genre ofindustrial novels, which were extremely popular in the Soviet Union. Nikitin wrote it on a bet with his fellow writers, who said that writing industrial novels was far more difficult than science fiction and that he was hardly capable of it. Nikitin bet he would write such a novel in six months and won.[5] The book received several high literary prizes, and aTV series was made based on it. The novel featured real people – Nikitin's co-workers in the foundry. He even used their real names, and they were pleased.[11]
In 1976, Nikitin joined theCommunist Party and theUnion of Soviet Writers. He was the first ever science fiction writer allowed and invited insistently to do it. The management of both those organizations had rather slighting attitudes towards science fiction in general, but they highly appreciatedFire Worshippers and the fact that Nikitin was a workman without higher education: it was congruent with the aims of communistpropaganda.[5]
Nikitin used his newly gained opportunities and influence to found the Speculative Fiction Fan Club (SFFC) (Russian: Клуб Любителей Фантастики, КЛФ) in Kharkiv. It was designed as a communication platform for sci-fi writers, scientists, and avid readers, a place for literature discussions and critics, and a means to help young sci-fi authors improve their writing skills and get their stories published. In 2003, Nikitin also createdSFFC in Moscow.
In 1979, Nikitin wrote his third book,The Golden Rapier: a historical novel about Alexander Zasyadko (1774–1837), a Russiangeneral of Ukrainian origin andinventor of rocket weapons. The book's contents were found inappropriate byLeonid Kravchuk, the head of theagitprop department of the Communist Party of Ukraine. He accused Nikitin of Ukrainiannationalism and ordered the destruction of all the printed copies of the book.[9]
For his scandalous novel, Nikitin was dismissed from his office in the Union of Writers, banned from publishing in Ukraine, and his name was forbidden from being mentioned in the local media. The same year, he entered the prestigious Higher Literary Courses (HLC) at the Literary Institute,Moscow. The pro-rector of HLC had readThe Golden Rapier and so liked it that he accepted Nikitin despite the communist officials strongly recommending not to do it.[5]
In 1981, Nikitin completed HLC and returned to Kharkiv but could not resume his writing work. Whatever he wrote was rejected by publishers for the reason that his name wasblacklisted. In 1985, this made him move to Moscow.[12] There Nikitin published his fourth book,The Radiant Far Palace, a collection of short science fiction and fantasy stories.
During perestroika, when some degree offree enterprise was allowed to Soviet citizens, Nikitin, in association with other writers, foundedFatherland (Russian: Отечество), one of the first cooperative publishing houses in the country. He worked as editor-in-chief there for a while, then established his own private publishing house,Zmey Gorynych (Ravlik) (Russian: Змей Горыныч), later re-organized intoRavlik (Russian: Равлик). It specialized in English and American science fiction, almost unknown to Soviet readers before. Nikitin selected books for translation and publishing from his home library, which included over 5,000 science fiction books in English. As he explained later, "I could prepare a hundred volumes of selected sci-fi works as there was no book in my library that I hadn’t read from cover to cover."[5]
By then, Nikitin had half a dozen of his novels written but unpublished. In the USSR, an author was allowed to release up to one book in three years. Another reason publishers rejected Nikitin's manuscripts was that his protagonists were immortal and happy about it. The Soviet editorial policy was to publish only the works that showed immortality as terrible and abominable; all immortal heroes were expected to repent and commit suicide.[13] In 1992, Nikitin printed the first of those novels,The Three from the Forest, inRavlik – and it was a great success. Each next book of this series became a bestseller.Ravlik switched almost exclusively to publishing books by Nikitin.
In the late 1990s, Nikitin abandoned his publishing business and focused entirely on writing books. Major publishing houses purchased the rights for them: at firstCentrpolygraph (Russian: Центрполиграф), thenEksmo (Russian: Эксмо).
SomeMoscow neopagans revere Nikitin as a teacher in the craft of writing. In 2001, Nikitin attended a neopagan celebration.[4]
Nikitin did not give interviews for a long time, but some unscrupulous sites published fabricated interviews.[14] In 2007, his first personally verified interview was published on the internet.[15]
On 30 March 2014, during the Eksmo Book Festival in Moscow, Nikitin officially confessed his writing ofThe Adventures of Sir Richard Longarms, an epic fantasy novel series ongoing since 2001 with over 7,000,000 copies sold in Russia and other countries, under the pen name of Gaius Julius Orlovsky.[16] Before the reveal, the similarity of style, turns of speech, and ideas promoted in their novels, as well as the presence of Gaius Julius as the pseudonym of the hero of one of Nikitin's stories, all led to the logical conclusion about the identity Orlovsky, which was supported by some literary sites.[17]
Nikitin was the author of more than 100 books (including those published under the pen name of Gaius Julius Orlovsky) and one of the most commercially successful Russian writers, comparable toVasili Golovachov andSergei Lukyanenko.[18]
The World of SFF (Russian: Мир фантастики), the largest and most reputable Russian SFF magazine, writes about Nikitin: "It is hard to find another writer whose novels encompass such different themes and target audiences – and inspire such a contradictory public response."[19] Nikitin is a recognized founder ofSlavic fantasy, to whichThe Three from the Forest andThe Three Kingdoms belong, but he also worked in the genres ofhard science fiction (The Megaworld), apolitical thriller (The Russians Are Coming series),social science fiction about the close-at-hand future (The Strange Novels),comic fantasy (The Teeth Open Wide series), andhistorical fantasy (The Prince’s Feast,Hyperborea series).
The Three from the Forest series is based on the life of theNeuri, which are, according to Nikitin, distant ancestors of the Eastern Slavs, as well as their neighbors, theScythians andCimmerians. It features three protagonists: Targitai, whose prototype is a legendary Scythian king of the same name, Oleg, identified with the historical personality of Slavic Prince Oleg, and Mrak, a strongman andwerewolf. They go through various adventures in varied settings: the half-mythological lands ofHyperborea andScythia, thenKievan Rus’, medieval Europe, and the Middle East. The last novels are set in Russia in the late 1990s (Tower 2), in outer space (Beyondhuman), and on alien planets (The Man of Axe). Four books, fromThe Holy Grail toThe Return of Sir Thomas, form a separate sub-series telling the story of a heroic quest by Oleg and Sir Thomas, a knight crusader. As of June 2014, the series has 19 books, and six more are planned.[20]
In 1999, Nikitin wrote the novelPharamond, dedicated to the life and adventures of the semi-legendary progenitor of theFrankish kings from theMerovingian dynasty in the era of theMigration Period.
The Strange Novels series falls into social, psychological, and philosophical science fiction genres. The books speculate about the nearest future of Russia and the world. Most attention is given to the problems of personal and social development in the fast-changinghi-tech environment, to the changes that might occur in our present-day morals and culture under the impact of the new technologies, such astranshumanism, changing public morality, a person's place in the future, the possibility and prospects of immortality, and information wars. Nikitin was generally optimistic about the future. In his books, the strong-willed, hard-working, honest, and responsible are likely to become winners.[8]
Nikitin also wrote the autobiographical booksI'm 65 andI'm 75 and the textbookHow to Become a Writer.
Nikitin avoided using thesemicolon, considering it "a relic of the century before last".[21]
HistorianVictor Schnirelmann characterizes Nikitin as a formerdissident ofRussian nationalist orientation.[3] Nikitin's books reproduce the ideas ofSlavic neopaganism in artistic form[3][4] and have become part of the neopagan subculture.[22] According to Andrey Beskov, Nikitin prefers when the sources provide a minimum of information without limiting the author's imagination, so, for example, he builds myths about Slavic deities in the novelArtania.[23]
In his works in the early 1990s, Nikitin depicts the Russians as descendants of the Scythians, who, according to him, settled widely from Western Asia to Western Europe and passed on their cultural achievements and gods to the local peoples. The Phoenicians are called "the purest Rus", who created the oldest written language in the world. The Canaanites are also identified with the Russian tribes, and the Levant is shown as primordially Russian territory.[3]
The works show that the Russian pagan spiritual heritage, in all respects, surpasses the poor Western and Christian moral values. Russian paganism is the foundation of all later religions, including world ones, that arose. Depicting Slavic paganism, Nikitin borrowed various elements from the Old Testament and Christianity. In his representation of paganism, Nikitin approaches the position of the newspaperNative Spaces, portraying it as atheism. One of the characters, Oleg, says: "My god is reason, knowledge ... My world is without gods at all."[3]
Nikitin wrote about the "Judeo-Masonic conspiracy", which goes back to the beginning of time and aims to establish the power of the chosen Wise Men worldwide. The Jewish god is depicted as thirsting for bloody human sacrifices and striving to destroy the Slavs, and the Jewssacrifice the Slavs to him. There is a world struggle between the forces of light and the forces of darkness, represented by the Slavs and the Jews, respectively.[3]
Christianity destroyed the original faith of the ancestors, its volkhvs, andancient Slavic writing. Nikitin repeats the neopagan mythology that Prince Vladimir the Great, fulfilling the order of the "Jewish Freemasons", entwined Rus' with a Christian net and turned the Russians into slaves. One of the heroes of the novels is Oleg the Prophet, a volkhv who remained faithful to paganism, despite the establishment of Christianity. Nikitin contrasts culture and civilization as higher and lower, connecting the first with noble paganism and the second with Satan and the "Jewish Masons". Oleg's main enemies are the "Jewish Masons", who serve the destructive idea of progress and civilization, and for whom the freedom-loving "uncontrollable" Slavic people are the greatest danger and, therefore, must disappear. At the same time, Christianity is portrayed as the younger brother of paganism, young and ignorant, and Oleg acts in alliance with the Christians.[3]
Since the late 1990s, the interpretation of the past in Nikitin's works has changed somewhat. Nikitin softened his position on Jews and Christianity, and criticism of paganism often appears on the part of the heroes of the works. The identification of the Scythians and Slavs and the idea of the Scythian or Slavic affiliation of various characters and historical figures of ancient history (Achilles, Atilla, etc.) are preserved. Nikitin describes the Rus as the first people on earth and the "Aryan" ancestors. The "branch of the Rus" settled in Palestine and built the oldest local cities. The "genuine Russian" names of places in Palestine created by one of the founders of Russian neopaganism,Valery Yemelyanov, or derived from them are present, such as "Yeruslan" (Jerusalem) and "Siyan-mountain" (Mount Zion).
It is argued that Nazareth is the original "Slavic city", and therefore Jesus was a Slav. One of the landmarks in history for Nikitin was theBook of Veles, from which he borrowed ideas about the Slavs, such as their being the "grandchildren of Dazhdbog", their nomadic lifestyle in the endless steppes, and their ancient book culture. However, he refuses the idea of the Book of Veles that the ancient Slavs did not know human sacrifice.[3]
Slavic paganism, according to Nikitin, teaches strength and courage, while Christianity teaches humility. At the same time, Nikitin writes that Christianity makes the world unified, "removes the walls between peoples", and begins to associate the problem of the Christianization of Rus' with the activities of the Byzantines, removing the question of the Jews. However, the stereotype is repeated that the Jews allegedly do not consider other people to be people and do not treat them morally because they are "goyim, subhuman".
The Jews are portrayed as the opposite of the "Scythian-Slavs"-Rus, endowing the former with negative qualities and the latter with positive ones. The Russians are a young people (which contradicts Nikitin's other thought about the origin of all the others from them) to whom the future belongs, while the Jews are an ancient people who stand on the edge of the grave. These two peoples are so different that they are doomed to eternal struggle. The ancient Jews seized Palestine by force and brutally destroyed the Rus-Canaanites, for which, according to ancient prophecy, they must be punished by the Rus and destroyed. Nevertheless, the author finds a way out of this situation in the decision that both peoples should merge into a single people.[3]
Prince Vladimir forcibly baptizes the people of Kiev and turns the Russians into a "people of slaves." The departing volkhvs gradually introduce their rites and customs into the new faith. They go into the wilderness to prepare the people for apagan revival in the distant future.[3]
A peculiarity ofThe Strange Novels series is the absence of mainstay heroes. Except forThe Imago andThe Immortist, both featuring Bravlin Pechatnik, each novel tells a separate story. The books are only united by the common world and the scope of problems.[8]
The four books ofThe Russians Are Coming series are commonly defined asalternate history, but they werepolitical thrillers about the nearest future. The first novel,Rage, was written in 1994 and set in 1996. The protagonist is Platon Krechet, the President of Russia, determined to make his country strong and prosperous. In order to do it, he adoptsIslam as the newstate religion instead ofRussian Orthodoxy. Such a theme was considered unacceptable at that time. No Russian publisher dared to release this novel, despite the unprecedented commercial success ofThe Three from the Forest several years before, so the first edition ofRage and its two sequels was printed and distributed by Nikitin at his own cost.[24]
Several words invented by Nikitin are now used in Russian language, especially on the web.
Nikitin had two children of his first marriage, which ended with his wife's death. In 1990, he met Lilia Shishikina, an experienced bookseller, and she became his business companion and common-law wife. For several years she was in charge of "Ravlik".
On 22 May 2010, Nikitin married Lilia during a small ceremony at their home in Red Eagles (Russian: Красные Орлы), a cottage settlement near Moscow. Only their closest friends were invited.[28]
Nikitin is fascinated with new technologies: he monitors the hi-tech news thrice a day,[29] has six computers at home and many electronic devices, which he upgrades and changes for newer models regularly.[30] He also loves to playMMORTS and spends 2–3 hours a day on average in MMOGs.[31]
For over 30 years, Nikitin gave not a single interview, visited no conference or SF convention, and held no meeting with readers. This situation only changed after the release ofTranshuman.[30]
As of June 2014, Yuri Nikitin is a frequent visitor to the online forumTranshuman (Russian: Трансчеловек) where he has the nickname ofFrog, being one of the first registered members and an honorary administrator. This website is the main platform of Nikitin's online communication with fans and readers as he had a skeptical attitude towardsblogging.[32] Also, there are online clubs of Nikitin's fans inFacebook andVK.
Nikitin and his wife lived in Falcon Hill (Russian: Соколиная гора), a cottage settlement near Moscow. They have a petboxer Linda. As noted by fans, Nikitin lent his passion for strong sweet blackcoffee to nearly all his heroes.[30] Nikitin preferred a healthy way of life: for many years, he drank no alcohol and practicedcycling andweightlifting as a hobby.[30]
Nikitin died on 23 May 2025, at the age of 85.[33]
See "The Russians are coming" for the origin of the series name (Русские идут)
In the post-Soviet period, there were no official foreign releases of Nikitin's books. However, some of Nikitin's short stories can be found in English on the web, e. g.Sisyphus translated by David Schwab.[35]
In 2013, a group of Nikitin's fans, with the author's consent, translated into EnglishThe Holy Grail (title changed toThe Grail of Sir Thomas) and offered it as a freee-book on a range of online SFF forums.[36][37][38]
As of June 2014, the English versions of three novels by Yury Nikitin (In the Very Beginning,The Grail of Sir Thomas,The Secret of Stonehenge) are available as e-books in major online retailers.[39]
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